How do you determine the price of your knives?

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unky_gumbi

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Aug 28, 2009
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Although I am still in the beginner stage of my knife making, how do you determine the cost of your creations?

Right now I am mainly making for myself and still looking for my style, but I do have a couple of requests for knives from friends and acquaintances. For the friends I have told them the price of materials and some odd favors, for the first one but after that the price needs to go up because of the time that I put into them. Being that I am new to this and never got into it to make money, I don't want to over charge, but I also don't want to devalue my work. There must be some sort of scale that most makers use to set prices other then supply and demand plus materials.
 
Considering it's a hobby for me, I don't expect to make as much per hour as my regular job. If I can get $10 per each hour that I spend working on a knife, I am happy. So if I worked on a knife for 12hrs that would amount to $120 for my labor and time, and another $20 for materials. I think $140 (or in that range) for a well made custom knife is a pretty reasonable price, and most people don't mind paying that. It may be more or less depending on how much time and effort I actually have to put into the knife. A small neck knife I might only charge $80, versus a large bowie I might charge $180-$200. I try to go by the idea that a good working knife should cost no more than what an average man would make in a day. That might change if my maker's name get's famous though.:D
 
I price them as if I was buying my own knife, sometimes I'm not satisfied with the knife, then I price them low, sometimes it turns out perfect, I price them higher. The prices can be found easily from the sales areas of forums and some knife markets online, make sure your price for a certain knife type is not absurdly low or high.

Emre
 
I do the same thing as Emre. I essentially base it on how much I would pay for it, and if one turned out particularly well then I add a bit. I'm just doing this for a hobby though, so making a big profit is not that important. My main goal is to cover belts, steel, handle material, and to buy better tools, so if anything, I under-price my knives to make sure they sell. I have to be honest, if I couldn't sell any knives, I'd still be making just as many.
 
robloveday said:
if I couldn't sell any knives, I'd still be making just as many.
Click to expand...

I see my self getting into that situation:O
When I started my first knife, I didn't think I would get this far into it. I thought 1 or 2 fixed blades and maybe a folder or 2 just for myself then that would be it, but now I have 5 fixed blades sitting here in various stated of completion and plans on making 3 more in the next month and a half for other people that have seen the ones I have finished. I go through sandpaper so fast that I have started to look for deals on bulk purchases, and I pick up an extra file or 2 every other week, just because I may need it.

It would be nice just to make back the cost of materials, and get some extra to buy tooling to improve the work I do.

The materials, plus a base hourly rate sounds good to me, leaving room for increased pricing for the ones that turn out exceptional.

Thanks a lot.:thumbup:
 
unky_gumbi said:
The materials, plus a base hourly rate...
Click to expand...

Of course as a beginner sometimes it only works out with a ridiculous rate. I never made a knife yet in an amount of time that would let me use minimum wage as an hourly rate. I guess things are suppose to go faster with experience.
 
I add up all the materials, propane, grinding belts, sandpaper, you name it. And of course the steel, handle material, pinstock or corbys, thong tube, epoxy. The amount of things like epoxy will be negligible for one knife, I just try to average it out. I add like five bucks for shop wear and tear, (new bits, saw blades, etc.) I add shipping, usually a sheath, and then call my time worth $15 bucks an hour. This means that I try to work efficiently to keep my hours down so that my knives are not ridiculously priced. I often sell knives in the low to mid $200's that I have spent ten to twelve hours on.
 
I think that my personal wage on a knife build will be much less then $15/hour. I have been going over my time that I spend per knife and they take me about 40-50 hours to complete not counting the sheath:o Yet I still mainly use files and sandpaper to to shape my knives. I started profiling with a 30X1" grinder. The last 3 I roughed in the bevels with it, but still had to spend a lot of time with the files and sandpaper to make them passable. I think for now my personal wage will be more of an A class B class and C class depending on how well the knife turns out added to the cost of materials.

for a 9" knife, lets say I have a good day with the belt grinder and I profile and rough in a bevel in 4 hours, then I spend another 4 hours filing and hand sanding to HT level. I still send out to be HT'd but when I get it back I will spend another 12+ hours getting it to my idea of finished, hand sanded from 400 to 2500 with little to know visible scratches. I can easily spend 2 full days making the scales not counting finishes, because the woodworking side is where I have troubles:o so there is 36 hours, add a couple of days on the sheath, but I have only made one sheath so far, made a couple of ugly leather pouches trying to make that one.
Materials would run me about $53 using stabilized wood and a simple high carbon steel, I would use 16 sheets of sandpaper on the finish averaging out to 1 buck a sheet. I am still looking for a better deal on sandpaper and I would use up the equivalent of 1 30X1 belt at 3 bucks a belt Ht is reasonably price to me at 13.50 for a 8-12" piece so I spend about $85 in materials for one knife and it took me 36 hours to complete what I would call a B class knife without a sheath. If I charged $150 for the knife add $25 for the sheath and lets say 4 hours to make it. that would mean that I would get less then 2 bucks an hour for my time.

Believe it or not I would be happy with 2 bucks an hour and I could keep the knifes in that price range and get a raise just by getting better tooling and improving my efficiency.
 
I've always believed that knifemakers undercharge for their work. The idea that some of you account for only $10-15/hour just rattles me to the bones.

People make that money at Starbucks or the Gap or stocking a warehouse, and those are jobs that require only a couple of weeks of training. Meanwhile, you guys spend weeks and weeks perfecting the art of hand sanding alone. In the end, you train yourselves for years and develop skills, designs, methods and expertise that is worth WAY more than $10/hour.

Far be it from me to tell other people how to handle their own business. So charge whatever you want, believe me, I won't stop you.

I just find that hourly figure to be really low.

I suppose this is why I'm more comfortable selling graphic design and art than I am selling (or even showing) knives.
 
Hi Folks,

I just love these threads on the business and finance of knife making. To me it ranks right up there with steel metallurgy, forging and tooling, heat treating, etc. Here are some other threads on exploring the topic.

All the best, Phil


An open and honest discussion about pricing
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=668332

How do you set prices when you are new? a discussion...
http://knifedogs.com/showthread.php?t=407

Fulltimers: Seeking feedback and insight (long)
This is an amazing thread with many topnotch pros talking about the biz...
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=546094

Knife Making and Arts productivity ...
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=615882

Newbie question about starting a knifemaking business on the side
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=669374

Special orders
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=610854

A question for other "Custom Makers"
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=704855
 
Never been there, but I guess the customers determine the price in the end. That is, you may try to sell for a price and, if it sells, that's good.
What I can tell you is roughly what applies to any other activity.
Usually, when starting a business, people just do a budget plan, which can roughly estimated like:
- how much I need to live, monthly (or: how much I want to get from this activity? Am I expecting to buy a Ferrari within the first year?)
- how much will the business cost me in supplies?

then, add the second figure to the first, and divide it by the number of knives you can build in a month.
Then, look dispassionately at the sum you got and ask yourself: are you good enough your knives can fetch that price?
If yes, you have at least a starting point.

If, otoh, you do it as a hobby, and don't have to live by it, other considerations come into play.
But I'll leave that to the experts who actually sell their knives.
 
I let my clients set the price. When I was at a point where I had an 8 year waiting list and no possibility of filling those orders I raised my prices until the orders slowed down to a point where I could come closer to keeping up.

Those early clients support you economically in order that you can afford to learn and build your shop.

After 30 years of knife making I now have almost everything I need to make the knives I wanted to be able to make when I started.
Good Luck
 
After reading some of Farmer Phil's links, I did a little research. I may qualify for a small business grant to set up shop:thumbup: I will have to do a little more investigating on Monday once the government offices open again, but if it gives me the capital to set up a permanent shop and tooling, that would make things so much easier than working out of my place of employment and in front of my computer. Yes I do most of my finish sanding right here while reading and posting on BFC:o
 
LOL @ Knivemaking being hazardous to bank account. I thought I was the only one who went overboard.
 
I find myself having to make some sacrifices to get my knives out there to the public. I don't have a website or anything like that, but I sell my knives at a hunting and fishing store in the city where I live. The only problem is that they tack on an extra $30 comission to every knife I want to sell there. So I end up cutting myself short by that extra $30 just so my knives will not be higher priced than what people around here are willing to pay (or so it seems). The owner of the store says he doesn't really sell very many knives in general. He say's he'll sell maybe one or two knives a year...but since having my knives in there for only 2 years, he's sold about a dozen of my knives. I guess that's not doing too bad, but I think what I really need is a website and to start selling my knives to a larger public.
 
I try and price my knives fairly for both me and the customer. Materials more than labor. I guess I am still a newbee, I am amazed that people are willing to pay me to make a knife. I sell my knives to build my shop up. That way when I retire hopefully I can help subsidize my my measly SS check. They say the easiest way to have a million dollars in the bank making knives is to start with 2 million.
 
I list a lot of my knives on Ebay and that really lets you know what the buyeers think your work is worth.....
 
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